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Going with the flow: Culham engineers set international CFD benchmarks | 07/11/2017

A set of validation cases prepared by Culham engineers and endorsed by industry body NAFEMS will help designers working on fusion powerplants, aeroplanes, Formula 1 cars and on many other applications.

Andrej Horvat and Chris Jones of CCFE's Engineering Evaluation Section have established a series of tests that engineers working with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can use to check that their software is producing accurate results.

CFD is a branch of fluid mechanics that looks at complex flows and interactions of liquids and gases with surfaces. CFD simulations are widely used in basic and applied research across industry and even help meteorologists forecast the weather. But until now there has been no commonly acceptable way to evaluate the effectiveness of CFD computer modelling.

Using examples from fusion research projects, these tests give a benchmark for the performance of CFD computer codes that engineers utilise in their design analyses.

Chris Jones explains: “Fluids are complicated and difficult to simulate, but really important in engineering design. The software we use is as valuable as the scales in a scientist's lab. Simulation errors can have serious consequences for the design – it could be the difference between an aeroplane flying or falling out of the sky.

“In fusion, CFD helps us achieve efficient heat exchange and cooling systems in tokamaks. As we scale up from experiments to reactors this will become a big issue. We need efficient heat transfer, for example, to take the energy from the fusion reactions and convert it to electricity. We also need it to stop components from overheating and melting. It's relevant for both the next-generation ITER experiment and for powerplants.

“As we were working on the EUROfusion project, it struck me that the work we were doing was setting a standard and could be used for a wider impact. It's a real achievement to be recognised by NAFEMS – many of the top CFD experts around the world have reviewed the benchmark. It will improve quality and consistency in this field.”